The present disclosure relates to a recording head recovery system having ink ejection ports through which ink is ejected onto a recording medium such as paper, to an inkjet recording apparatus provided with such a recording head recovery system, and to a method for recovering a recording head.
As a recording apparatus such as a facsimile machine, a copier, or a printer, an inkjet recording apparatus that forms images by ejecting ink is widely used for forming high-resolution images.
In such an inkjet recording apparatus, fine ink droplets (hereinafter, referred to as mist) ejected together with ink droplets for image recording and splashed mist generated when ink droplets attach to a recoding medium are settled and hardened on an ink ejection surface of a recording head. Gradually-increased mist on the ink ejection surface covers ink ejection ports, and leads to degraded straight-traveling performance (curved flying) of ink, ejection failure, and the like; this results in degraded printing performance of the recording head.
As a solution, an inkjet recording apparatus is known in which, for the purpose of cleaning an ink ejection surface of a recording head, a plurality of cleaning solution feed ports are provided in a part of the ink ejection surface outside (the upstream side in the wiping direction of a wiper) an ink ejection region where a plurality of ink ejection ports are open. In this inkjet recording apparatus, after cleaning solution has been fed through the cleaning solution feed ports, the wiper can, by being moved along the ink ejection surface from outward of the cleaning solution feed ports, wipe the ink ejection surface while holding the cleaning solution thereon. In this way, the process of recovering the recording head can be performed.